May 21, 2015

The Trib, Stephanopoulos, and the Clinton Foundation (oh, and the late Mr. Scaife)

I've been waiting for the day for someone at the Tribune-Review to point an ink-stained finger at the Clinton Foundation and the allegations of influence buying made by Peter Schweizer's anti-Clinton harange, "Clinton Cash."

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on Thursday apologized in a statement to Politico's On Media blog for his previously undisclosed donations totaling $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

"I made charitable donations to the Foundation in support of the work they’re doing on global AIDS prevention and deforestation, causes I care about deeply," he said in the statement. "I thought that my contributions were a matter of public record. However, in hindsight, I should have taken the extra step of personally disclosing my donations to my employer and to the viewers on air during the recent news stories about the Foundation. I apologize."

The large donation by Stephanopoulos, who was the communications director for Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign and then was the White House communications director, was revealed a month after he interviewed the author of the book Clinton Cash, which investigated donations made to the Clinton Foundation while Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton was working as secretary of state, on ABC's "This Week."

The point being that Stephanopolus should have let his audience know that he donated 50 large to the Clinton Foundation.

Scaife, Ruddy, and Clinton met on July 31, 2007, in the Clinton Foundation's offices in Harlem, after the former president extended an invitation. Scaife later donated more than $100,000 to the foundation.

Clinton said he was amazed that Scaife had decided not only to see him, but took a strong interest in the Clinton Foundation and its work.

Last time I checked $100,000 was twice as large as $50,000. However, that must've been only the beginning of Scaife's "strong interest" because Politico has reported that Scaife actually donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

That's between five and ten times larger than the now measly-by-comparison $50 grand Stephanopoulos gave.

So what does this mean for The Trib whenever they report something (anything) regarding the Clinton Foundation? Will they now report, whenever they mention the Clinton Foundation that the former owner of the paper donated between a quarter and a half million dollars to it?

I mean if Randy Bish can point that out about George Stephanopoulos, why wouldn't they want to be scrupulously honest and tell us about Scaife's Clinton Foundation even larger donations?